


With No Space Between Us

by BurningTea



Category: Leverage
Genre: Almost typed that as ned sharing, Caring Aimee, Caring Quinn, Hurt Eliot, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, They are not sharing a ned, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: Quinn brings Eliot home to Aimee after a job goes bad. The two of them tend to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynne_monstr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynne_monstr/gifts).



> Based on the prompt 'Things said with no space between us' for Eliot/Aimee/Quinn, the ship of which I am captain. 
> 
> If you wanted smut, apologies. You got whatever this is.

Eliot tries to play it down, but Quinn won’t let go of him and Aimee isn’t stupid. 

“What happened?” she asks, and it’s in that tone of voice that means they aren’t allowed to lie. 

“Job went bad,” Eliot says. Grunts, really. 

Almost every part of him hurts and he doesn’t see that Aimee knowing any of the details will help, but she narrows her eyes and looks at Quinn, whose face is still pinched with worry. He’s been throwing Eliot these looks since they met up, like he can picture a dead body all too easily. Eliot wishes he’d stop.

“Like he said,” Quinn says, and it’s weird to hear him sound so grim instead of sarcastic. 

“Oh, no,” Aimee says, but she gestures them through off the porch and to the bedroom they have set up on the ground-floor. “No. You are not leaving me in the dark. You both want to keep me ‘safe’ from what you do? Fine. I’ve agreed the whole hitting thing is for the two of you. But you are not shutting me out. Do I have to call Hardison? Parker?”

Eliot hears Quinn sigh and knows the other man is going to cave. Parker might not be his team leader, but she has almost as much control over Quinn as Aimee has and without any of the added incentives. 

“I got myself caught,” Eliot says. The words are half growl and half hiss of pain as Quinn helps him onto the bed. “I’ve been through worse.”

“Not reassuring,” Aimee tells him. She has the first aid kit in her hands already and nods at Quinn to move over as she sets it on the bed and opens it. “It’s not like your worst is a paper-cut.”

“She’s got you there,” Quinn says. 

He’s standing a few feet away with his arms crossed, something that might look intimidating, if Eliot could ever be intimidated by Quinn, except that the guy’s got this air about him of someone who’d rather be clinging on to any part of Eliot he could reach. 

“Looks like a whole load of people got you,” Aimee says. “Seriously, what happened? We need medical help?”

“No,” Eliot and Quinn say together. 

Quinn goes on before Eliot can stop him.

“Hardison had to call me,” he says. “They couldn’t get him out on their own. He’s dehydrated, hasn’t had enough to eat and there’s bruises all round his wrists. They beat him. No knives or needles.”

“All right!” Eliot snaps, because hearing Quinn list off what happened is almost as bad as living it. Worse. Aimee couldn’t see it happening.

He tries to lean out of Aimee’s reach as she lifts her hands up, but she arches an eyebrow and he settles. They have rules to this thing they have, and Aimee is the boss at home. So he sits still for her as she unzips his hoodie and peels it from him, grimacing at his sharp, indrawn breath as it jostles his bruises. 

“Sorry,” she says. “You tell me if it’s hurting, you hear?”

He nods, but this pain is nothing. Not really. 

Aimee tosses the hoodie at the chair in the corner and Eliot sees Quinn stoop to pick it up when it misses. It was a surprise to find out how neat and tidy the guy is, but maybe it comes with the job. With that out of the way, Aimee takes his right hand and turns his arm, tilting his wrist into the light. 

“Eliot,” she breathes. 

“It’s nothing,” he says, even though he knows she won’t stop. The ring of purpled skin will fade back into his normal tone and the bruises all over his ribs and back will heal. A few days, a sensible diet, and he’ll be good to go. “I just need a nap.”

She snorts and lifts the hem of his top. 

“Arms up.”

Quinn watches Aimee strip him and joins in when she starts cleaning any cuts and scrapes. He could do this himself, but it’s something neither of them like. If at all possible, they insist on tending to his wounds themselves. For some reason, Aimee lets Eliot sort Quinn out, observing from more of a distance unless it really needs the two of them, but with Eliot she’s always hands on. 

“Check his eyes,” she tells Quinn.

Eliot opens his mouth to protest, but there’s no point. In the couple of years since this started he’s learned Aimee will satisfy herself he’s well one way or the other. The one time he point blank refused he found Parker and Hardison on the porch the next day and Sophie on the other end of the line. Only Nate had stayed out of it and Eliot suspected that had been some calculated move to give Eliot someone to grumble at later. 

So he lets Quinn shine a light in his face and looks where he’s told to.

“Seems all right,” Quinn says. He doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “I don’t think he should be alone tonight.”

As though there was any real chance of that. Eliot resigns himself to lying awake all night with Quinn and Aimee in the same bed. It’s not that he never sleeps with them, in the literal sense, but it’s usually best not to try it so close to coming back from a job. He doesn’t trust himself not to wake up thinking he’s still fighting. 

Something of his reluctance must show, because Aimee looks thoughtful and sets a hand on Eliot’s cheek, turning his head further until he meets her gaze.

“We’ll just keep an eye on you,” she says. “We can go when you sleep. Don’t want to jostle you, anyway.”

It’s not like he was going to argue.

They have him stripped right down and patched up before they let him get in the bed, Quinn discarding his own clothes and slipping in behind Eliot a few minutes later. Eliot feels the bed shift and Quinn’s warm weight presses up against his back. Moments later, Quinn snakes an arm under Eliot’s head and wraps the other over him, his hand on Eliot’s stomach. 

Aimee’s longer, doing the rounds and checking everything’s locked up. It’s a job she won’t let the other two do, claiming she has to know she’s done it, that she’s here on her own too much to give up that routine. 

Eliot hears her steps move to the front room as Quinn’s breath tickles his ear.

“Thought I’d lost you for a minute, there,” Quinn says.

“Yeah. Well, you didn’t,” Eliot says, but he takes hold of Quinn’s hand and feels it tighten in his grip. “We’re both back safe.”

The kiss pressed to the back of his neck is something Quinn wouldn’t allow himself normally, not without some teasing comment to keep it company. Eliot doesn’t say anything as Quinn shifts, pushing a foot between Eliot’s.

“I haven’t been that scared in years,” Quinn says. 

“I’m right here,” Eliot says, because he can’t tell Quinn it’ll never come to the guy finding Eliot too far gone, or to him walking in to find Eliot dead. In their line of work, it’s more a case of eventually than never. But it hasn’t happened today. “I’m here in bed with you and Aimee’s locking up. It’s fine.”

Quinn just tightens his grip and doesn’t reply.

Aimee’s footsteps head back their way and she pauses in the doorway, looking down at them. There’s something fond and exasperated and vulnerable, all mixed together on her face.

“You two okay?” she asks, and Eliot’s sure she’s asking about more than his bruises.

“We will be,” he says. “You joining us?”

In answer, she sheds her clothes and turns off the light, slipping under the covers and twisting so her back’s pressed to Eliot. They don’t often lie like this, largely because he feels trapped if it goes on for too long or he’s already on edge. It’s something Aimee got him to admit to when he kept leaving the bed, just a month or two into their relationship. Just now, the pressure of them on either side is more of a comfort, and he knows they’ll move if he asks them to. 

“Promise me you’ll try to keep coming home,” Aimee says into the dark. “For as long as you can. Both of you.”

There’s a world in what she’s not saying and Eliot closes his eyes against an image of Aimee sitting in this house alone, waiting. He wants to tell her he’ll quit, that he’ll stop going out and putting his body and his life at risk, but Parker and Hardison aren’t going to stop what they do, and he still has to protect them.

Besides, having Aimee and Quinn to come home to makes it better, makes this a place he wants to be, but he can’t just stick here. It’ll still kill him, just not as fast. 

Aimee knows him, though. She knows what she can and can’t hope for. She’s only asked he tries. 

He buries his nose in her hair and pulls Quinn’s hand with his over Aimee’s waist. The younger man must be stretched out, but Quinn is like a cat in a lot of ways. Besides, this is the kind of night to be touching, all three of them together.

“I promise,” he says. “I’ll try.”

“Me, too,” Quinn says, and Eliot isn’t sure if Quinn means he’ll try to come back, or if he also wants Eliot to promise to come back to him. “We only just got our act together. Can’t go throwing it away yet.”

“No throwing it away,” Aimee agrees. 

She pushes back against Eliot and if he weren’t exhausted and injured he’d make more of that, but right now he breathes out and lets the warmth of Quinn and Aimee bleed out the cold from that room he was in. He lets the softness of the bed and of their skin replace the hard floor and their hands wipe away the chains. 

As usual, Quinn falls asleep first. He’ll wake up easily, alert and energetic, and Eliot will pretend to be irritated at the guy. Aimee falls asleep slowly, relaxing by degrees. She’ll wake last, grumpy and sleep-creased, and only leave the bed when she has to, tempted out by coffee and her duties. 

Eliot won’t sleep tonight. He’s tried to downplay it, but Quinn wasn’t the only one who had a moment of fear back there. It wasn’t the worst he’s faced - he wasn’t lying. But every time it happens, he’s that much closer to it being the last time, and these days he has so much more to lose. 

Into the spaces between their breaths he promises again, another vow he’ll keep to until he can’t.

“I’ll try to come back,” he says.


End file.
